by Yitzhak Arad
At the beginning of the winter of 1942, four prisoners escaped from Treblinka by using a breach in the security arrangements in the camp. Throughout the night, the Jews were locked into their barracks and the Ukrainians guarded the prisoners’ living area. As a result the security around the fences was more lax during the night. In the winter the prisoners rose while it was still dark; the doors to the barracks were opened so that they could go to the latrines, which were located outside the barracks, on the edge of the living area. At the same time, the night guard around the living area went off duty and was replaced by an enlarged guard in the watchtowers around the camp fences. The rule was that these two changes were to be carried out simultaneously, but frequently the guard posts in the living area were vacated before the guard in the watchtowers around the camp was strengthened. This gap in the guard system was used by the escapees, who were aware of it.
Before dawn, when it was still dark and the living barrack was opened, four prisoners left the barrack. When they saw that the Ukrainians that had guarded them during the night had left the area, they cut the fences around the barracks, crossed the selection square, crawled beneath the outer barbed wire of the camp, and escaped before the guards that manned the watchtowers came on duty. In the morning, the camp guards discovered the gaps in the fences, and when they counted the people in the barrack they saw that four were missing. The prisoners were lined up for roll call and, after threats, an SS man announced to them that in the future for every escapee every tenth prisoner would be put to death. While the roll call was going on, twenty sick prisoners who had not gone out to the roll call were taken to the Lazarett and were shot in reprisal.11
Escapes were also attempted in the extermination area. A group of twenty-four prisoners planned an escape, but as a result of an informer they were all arrested and shot. Another attempt also ended in failure. A group of seven people planned to escape through a tunnel that they would dig under the living barrack that bordered on the camp fence. The distance from the edge of the barrack to the first fence was only about 5 meters. At the beginning of the digging, the people in the group changed sleeping places with other prisoners so that their pallets were all concentrated in the corner of the barrack from which the entrance to the tunnel was planned. The digging was done at night, throughout the entire month of December 1942. The men in the group exhibited considerable initiative and cleverness in that they succeeded in digging in absolute secrecy, without the SS men or Ukrainians finding out, and also in improvising a method to hide all the earth that they dug out of the tunnel. It should be noted that most of the people in the barrack—about 250 men—knew about the tunnel and despite the absolute certainty that the escape would endanger all the prisoners, nothing was leaked to the camp authorities.
The escape was carried out on the night of December 31, 1942, New Year’s Eve. Five men succeeded in getting out through the tunnel and crossing the fences, but then a Ukrainian noticed the escapees and opened fire. Two of the group remained in the barrack, as they had not had time to get out through the tunnel. The entire extermination area was ordered to a roll call. The prisoners were taken out of the barrack and, after counting, five prisoners were found missing. That same night snow fell. The Germans and Ukrainians followed the tracks and reached a neighboring village. There they caught up with the escapees, who had gone into the village to rent a wagon. One of the prisoners got away, but the other four were caught, despite resisting capture. One was shot on the spot as he attacked an SS man. The other three were returned to the camp and after being tortured were hanged in front of all the prisoners in the extermination area, who were called to a special roll call to view the hanging. One of the escapees, called Mechele, who came from Warsaw, was hanged last, and as he stood under the hanging post he called out: “Down with Hitler! Long live the Jewish people!”12
The only one to escape was Lazar Sharson, who returned to the Warsaw ghetto, joined the Underground, and at the time of the revolt commanded a group of combatants and fought among the ruins of the ghetto until the end of September 1943.13 He was the only one during those months who succeeded in escaping from the extermination area of Treblinka.
Escapes from Belzec
There were few escapes from Belzec. The first escape was of two women, Mina Astman and Malka Talenfeld, from Zolkiew, who succeeded in escaping and returning home after only a few hours in the camp. This was at the end of March 1942. Back in Zolkiew they told the story of their escape, which was later recorded:
In closed wagons they were brought into the Belzec camp. They were ordered to undress. The people became scared. One of them asked the SS man who was close to him: “What’s the reason that we should undress?” Afterward the women were ordered to enter the barrack. . . . Exploiting the disorder and noise and lack of experience of the Germans [these were the first transports to arrive in Belzec], Astman and Talenfeld jumped into a nearby ditch and sat there undiscovered until dark. Under cover of darkness, they escaped from the camp and after a few days returned home.14
Another escape from Belzec was of the dentist Bachner from Cracow. He arrived in the camp with the last transports from Cracow at the beginning of October 1942. When the transport reached the camp, he succeeded somehow in entering a latrine and found a hiding place in the pit with excrement. He stayed there a few days. One night he was able to leave the pit, escape, and return to Cracow.15
The most famous escape from Belzec was carried out by Rudolf Reder, who wrote about it:
At the end of November, I had already been confined to the hell of Belzec for a few months. One morning I was told by the bully Irman that there was a need for tin in the camp. . . . I went with a truck, accompanied by four SS men and a guard to Lvov. After a whole day of loading the tin sheets, I remained in the car, under the guard of one of the bullies, while all the others went for entertainment. For hours I sat without moving. Then I saw that my guard had fallen asleep and was snoring. Without thinking, instinctively, I slid down the car. The bully continued sleeping. I stood on the sidewalk, appearing as if I were arranging the tin sheets, but slowly moving toward Legionow Street, where the traffic was quite heavy. I pulled my hat over my eyes; the streets were dark and nobody saw me. I remembered where a Polish woman, my landlady lived. I went there, and she hid me. . . .16
Rudolf Reder survived the war.
A Jew from Czechoslovakia was planning to escape from Belzec, but the camp authorities found out about his intentions. He was arrested and hanged. Jewish prisoners had to carry out the hanging of their fellow prisoner.17
The last escapee from among the prisoners of Belzec was Chaim Hirszman. He escaped from the last train out of Belzec after the camp was dismantled. The remaining Jews were being taken to Sobibor, where they were liquidated in July 1943. Hirszman and two other prisoners decided to escape from the train by removing a plank from the car’s floor. He jumped first; the other two were to jump after him. Hirszman succeeded in escaping and later joined the partisans. Whether or not the other two jumped and their subsequent fate remain unknown. Chaim Hirszman survived the war, but was killed in 1946 by Polish antisemites.18
There is no information about other successful escapes from Belzec. The fate of Bachner from Cracow and of Astman and Talenfeld from Zolkiew after their return to their native towns is unknown. They did not survive the war.
Escapes from Sobibor
The escapes from Sobibor were on a much smaller scale than those from Treblinka. The few known escapes took place at the end of 1942 and in the first half of 1943. There were several reasons for this. In contrast to Treblinka, in Sobibor order and tight security arrangements, introduced by Stangl, reigned from the beginning of the camp’s operation and made successful escapes more difficult. The number of transports to Sobibor were fewer than to the other two camps, and therefore the supervision of the prisoners was easier and a deterrent to escapes. There is no information about escapes from Sobibor until the end of 1942. Even the available evidence about escape
s carried out in 1943 is not based on direct testimonies of the escapees, nor on the testimony of people who met them. There were no survivors among the escapees from Sobibor except for those who escaped during the uprising of October 1943.
The first escape mentioned briefly in some testimonies was of a young man who was working at loading a train and who hid himself in a freight car among piles of clothing being sent out of Sobibor. This man reached the ghetto of Chelm and told the people what was going on in Sobibor.19 The exact date of this escape is unknown, but it must have been some time at the end of 1942 and not later than February 1943, when the Chelm ghetto was finally liquidated.
An escape of five Jewish prisoners, two of them women, together with two Ukrainian guardsmen was set for Christmas night, December 25/26, 1942. The escape was from Camp III, the extermination area. This was a well-planned and well-organized escape, but the details are unknown. Their choice of Christmas night was not accidental—that night the Germans and Ukrainians were celebrating and drunk. After the escape the whole group separated into at least two groups. The two Ukrainians, Victor Kisiliev and Vasyl Zischer, together with one of the young women, Pesia Lieberman, found refuge in the home of a Polish farmer near the big village of Olcho-wiec, 45 km southwest of Sobibor, on the night of December 31/January 1. But the farmer informed the nearby police station of Wierzbicy about the arrival of the escapees, and a group of the Polish-manned “Blue Police,” under the command of Police Officer Meisnerowicz, surrounded the farm and killed the three of them while they tried to escape. The names and fate of the other four escapees remain unknown, but they did not survive the war. In reprisal for this escape, a few dozen prisoners in Camp III were murdered.20
In the spring of 1943, on a stormy night, two Jews from Chelm escaped from the camp. Under cover of the darkness and rain, they cut the barbed-wire fences and crawled out. In the morning, the guards discovered the breach. Tovia Blatt testified as to what happened at the morning roll call:
The Germans consulted among themselves, and Scharführer Frenzel announced this verdict: each tenth prisoner in the rows of the roll call would be executed. He approached my group. I was seized with fear. . . . He is in the row behind me. My God, only not me—a man is an egoist. The third from me became the victim. After the selection, the doomed were taken to Camp III, and we went to work. Afterward we heard shots, and later the clothes of those who had been killed were brought for sorting.21
Twenty prisoners were shot as a reprisal for this escape of two prisoners.
After these escapes, the camp commander decided to lay mines around the camp. A group of soldiers from the Wehrmacht, under the guidance of Oberscharführer Gustav Wagner, carried out the work. The camp was surrounded with rings of mines. To make the escapes even more difficult, a ditch filled with water was dug between the barracks where the Jewish prisoners lived in Camp I and the nearby fences of the camp. Work was completed by the beginning of July 1943.22
The mining of the camp also was to serve as a defense against the partisans who operated during that time in the forests in the vicinity of Sobibor. One night during the summer of 1943, the Jewish prisoners were driven out of their barracks for a roll call and were surrounded by a strong force of Ukrainians. The prisoners could hear sounds of shooting coming from outside the camp. After some time calm was restored, and the prisoners were driven back to their barracks. Next day, the Ukrainians told them that partisans had approached the camp. Whether there really had been partisans or it had been a false alarm remained unclear. In no war reports of partisan activity in areas close to Sobibor is there mention of partisans intending to attack the camp or being active close to the camp. But the rumors about partisan activity in the forests served as an incentive for the prisoners; it gave them hope and encouraged escapes. It provided them with a target for escape.23
The minefield that had been set around the camp greatly limited the possibilities of escape from inside the camp. The Waldkommando, which worked outside the camp, afforded a better opportunity. On July 20, 1943, the Waldkommando consisted of twenty Polish Jews and twenty Dutch Jews cutting wood in the forest for the construction of new barracks and arms stores in Camp IV. The Waldkommando left the camp in the morning escorted by Ukrainian guards under the command of Scharführer Werner Dubois. Before the lunch break, two prisoners, Shlomo Podchlebnik and Yosef Kopf, escorted by a Ukrainian, went to bring drinking water from the nearby village of Ztobek. The two prisoners seized this opportunity. On the way back, they attacked and killed the Ukrainian, took his rifle, and escaped. Scharführer Werner Dubois testified about this escape:
For about three weeks, I was a leader of a Jewish group which worked outside the camp. I can remember the following event. During the time of my command, a Ukrainian guardsman was killed by two Jews when they went to bring water at a distance of 400–500 meters from the working place. These two Jews escaped. When I saw that the water-bearers did not return for a long time, I sent another guardsman to see what was going on. He returned and reported to me that he had found the guardsman—dead—and no sign of the two Jews. After that I ordered all the Jews to lie on the ground to prevent further incidents. I sent a guardsman to the camp to inform camp commander Reichleitner what had happened.24
When the remaining prisoners from Poland became aware of what had happened, they knew what the retaliation would be and so some of them decided to escape. Using the confusion among the guards, one of the prisoners shouted “Hurrah” and the Polish Jews started to run. The prisoners from Holland remained in their places and did not join the escape. The guards opened fire on the escaping prisoners. Two of them were killed, three got away, and thirteen were caught. According to another source, four of them succeeded in escaping, but one of them was caught the next day and brought back to the camp.25 All the Polish Jews from the Waldkommando were shot in front of all the camp prisoners; the Dutch Jews were left alive. Ada Lichtman testified about the shooting action in the camp:
When we were called for a roll call, we knew already what had happened. We trembled, thinking about what would happen to us. As we stood in the roll call, we decided among ourselves that we would not go to the gas chambers alive. We would defend ourselves by all means. Time passed, and our tension rose. We bid farewell to one another and to life. Some Germans arrived, opened the gate, and we were ordered to march to Camp II. There we stopped and were arranged in a semicircle. On the square lay, tied, the remaining members of the Waldkommando. One by one they were lashed and, at an order of a German, shot by a guardsman. The Germans were strolling among us. We had to watch all these cruelties without moving our eyes or turning our heads. After the execution we were taken back to Camp I. Wagner and Frenzel announced to us that next time all of us would be responsible for one escapee.26
After this escape, Polish Jews were no longer included in the Waldkommando. They would no longer be among those taken for work in the forest, outside the camp. Now only Dutch Jews were included in this group. They, as strangers in Poland, without knowledge of the local language and people, unfamiliar with the country and countryside, did not regard escape as potentially successful. For this reason, the commanding authorities of the camp saw them as a more reliable element, as was proven during the Waldkommando escape.
Summary
Escapes were attempted from all three camps, but the outcome differed as a result of the specific conditions prevailing in each camp. The number of escapes was the largest in Treblinka and, after that, in Sobibor. In Belzec, the relatively small number of escapes might have been because of stricter supervision and security: it is safe to assume that the number of escapees was larger than what is known, but because of the small number of survivors from Belzec we have no further details.
One of the basic problems that the escapees faced was a viable destination. While the ghettos still existed, most escapees made for these ghettos. But as time passed, more and more ghettos were liquidated—most by the end of October 1942. Very few prisoners had Gentile ac
quaintances whom they could hope would shelter them. The absence of a refuge or hiding place after escape made many give up any thought of escaping from the camp.
Hundreds of people escaped or attempted to escape from the camps. Most were caught, tortured, and killed. In the first month of the camps’ existence, the opportunities for escape were easier and, indeed, during that time most of the successful escapes were carried out. As time passed, escape became more and more difficult. The security measures were improved; barbed-wire fences were added around the camps, each made up of two or three separate fences. In the same way, the inner sections of the camps, including the living barracks of the prisoners, were also cordoned off. Additional watchtowers were built. Considering the relatively small area of the entire camp, the guards in the watchtowers had an excellent and constant view over everything that was going on in the camp during the entire day. At night the prisoners were locked into their barracks and Ukrainians stood guard outside. In addition, the severe punishments—torture and hanging—that were the fate of the escapees and the assurance that for every prisoner who escaped ten or the tenth prisoner would be executed were further deterrents. In the winter, the snow and the tracks left in the snow also made escape more difficult. At the beginning of the winter, in December 1942, the last escapes were attempted in Treblinka and, for the most part, ended in failure. In Sobibor, the escapes were carried out mostly from the end of 1942 until the summer of 1943, when the mining of the camp made escape almost impossible.
Those prisoners in Treblinka and Sobibor who sought a way out of the extermination and had planned quiet, simple escapes soon learned that that way was no longer open to them and that they would have to go about it with unconventional, organized, and very complicated plans. And so at the beginning of 1943 in Treblinka and in the summer of 1943 in Sobibor, the first ideas in these camps about organized resistance and escape began to take shape.